Aaron Judge and Juan Soto were human blemish cream for the 2024 Yankees.

The organization can pretend that their poor technical play was isolated to the World Series. But their fundamental shortcomings were evident — and not fixed — all season. The Yankees nevertheless won their first pennant in 15 years because their pitching was sound and the American League overall was meh. But, to some large extent, because Soto and Judge were a dynamic 1-2 while hitting 2-3.

Don’t downplay their constancy. Both batted more than 700 times, something no Yankee had done since — you won’t believe this — Giancarlo Stanton in 2018. They were the first Yankee pair to do so since Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira in 2010.

They combined for a .305/.439/.634 slash lines with 99 homers en route to finishing first (Judge) and third (Soto) for AL MVP. The rest of the Yankees were .233/.302/.375 with 138 homers.